I think the idea of suing someone for posting a bad review about your business is as preposterous as that lawsuit oh so long ago against McDonald’s for the coffee being too hot.  Actually, that lawsuit probably had more merit than any of these will.  Why would anyone use review sites if only good things were posted???  What’s the point of having the Internet and the ability to share our thoughts and opinions if we can’t share the good and the bad?

As I mentioned in my last blog, I no longer trust the reviews on hostels.com and hostelbookers.com because they allow the proprietor to delete certain reviews.  My firsthand experience with these websites is that, after spending a good chunk of time to write a review, most of the bad reviews I’ve written got deleted after a few weeks.  So now I’ve switched to Tripadvisor where comments and reviews are moderated and once they are put up, they stay up! 

Some people argue that businesses should have the right to sue because false reviews gets posted, but out of all the reviews I’ve read, I’ve only seen one that looked like it could be fake (and it was a positive review).  In our 9 months of travel so far, anywhere we’ve stayed that’s been mind-blowingly awesome has had mostly all good reviews (you can never please everyone!).  Likewise, anywhere we’ve had a bad experience, there were a number of bad reviews, and those reviews were accurate or similar to our experience to some degree. 

Besides, on a site like Tripadvisor, the management can always write a response to the bad review, and it gets posted right under the bad review.  Personally, I always read the management response and I’ve booked at several places that had multiple bad reviews but there was management responses.  I think it shows you care enough to address the issues!  I think instead of wasting time and money on frivolous law suits about deflamation, the management at these businesses that have bad reviews should concentrate their energy on making improvements and then respond to the bad reviews to say they’ve fixed the problem!  Even if you sue me, what kind of money do you think you’re going to get out of an ordinary civilian???

After a short one hour flight from Istanbul, we arrived in Athens, Greece this evening.   At the moment, there are no budget airlines flying to Athens, so we took a flight with Aegean, a regular carrier.  Although it was a bit more expensive (€180 for two one-way tickets to Athens), I have to say it was nice not to fly with a budget airline for a change!

Unlike when we arrived in Istanbul, today we flew from Atatürk International Airport, Istanbul’s primary airport.  We had initially planned to take the tram there, but every time we rode the tram this week it’s been completely full and getting on with luggage would be difficult.  We decided it would be worth it to pay for a shuttle, but our hotel wanted a ridiculous €30 to hire a ride to the airport!  Luckily, the travel agency (Mysia) across the street had a shuttle at 12:35 pm for just 11 lira per person.  Our flight was not till 5 pm, but the extra time turned out to be necessary because the shuttle driver was late picking us up and there was heavy traffic.  I’m not sure what was scarier, the bus rides yesterday or our shuttle driver’s erratic impatient driving today… If you’re considering using a shuttle in Istanbul to get to the airport, give yourself plenty of time and prepare for a rough ride!

When we got to Atatürk Airport, we were surprised to find we had to go through security to enter the airport.  Since you have to go through another security check before you board (there’s a scanner and metal detector thingy at every gate!), they don’t worry about things like liquids at the first security check, but you still have to take out your laptop, empty your pockets, take off your coat, etc.  I understand why you’d want to check people as they go into the airport, but it’s quite a hassle to have to go through security twice! 

Unlike budget airlines, regular carriers like Aegean, Air Canada, Delta, etc. allow up to two pieces of carry-on luggage (one small and one regular size).  From our experience, as long as your carry-on looks like standard carry-on size, the check-in staff don’t hassle you to weigh or size-check it (they also allow you to check one piece of luggage weighing up to 30kg without an extra charge).  When you’re living off the contents of two 35-litre backpacks, everything is necessary and important so we never check our bags.  But, fully packed, our bags weigh about 12kg each so when we fly budget airlines we have to wear extra layers and put heavy things like laptop chargers and liquid toiletries into our pockets to be within the 10kg carry-on weight limit.  Not having to do this today was such a relief!

After a painfully slow (but hassle free) check in, we went through a customs and immigration checkpoint to exit Turkey.  There was a separate line for Turkish citizens and we noticed that all the men in that line were wrapped in towels the way we were when we finished at the Turkish baths!  They were coming from a room next to the bathroom and the signs were all in Turkish, but I’m guessing there’s a bath in there!  There were women as well, but they were wearing pale yellow long-sleeve dress-type garments, not towels.  I asked Ilyas about it when I got online later and he thinks they were going to somewhere called “Umre (Kudüs)” which is a holy place for Muslims…

When we landed in Greece we had no problems getting through customs and we found our way by metro to our hotel, the Best Western Hotel Pythagorion.  We were originally planning to stay at a hostel that was rated pretty high on hostels.com, but when I checked the reviews on Tripadvisor I found a bunch of bad stuff.  I’ve learned my lesson from our past stays – always double check reviews against Tripadvisor because the hostel can delete bad reviews off hostels.com or hostelbookers.com.  And right now, during the low season, most hotels have cut prices but many hostels haven’t so it only cost us 7 euro more per night to have a hotel room instead of sleep in a 4 bed mixed dorm.  The Best Western isn’t in a great location (20 min walk from the Acropolis & archaeology sites) but our room is big, we have a mini fridge to use, the Wi-Fi works great, and there’s a full breakfast included.  I’ll take that over a mediocre hostel any day!

In an effort to be more “concise” with my blogging, I’m going to try writing shorter articles and be more brief when I talk about what we’ve been doing.  In the past, I’ve summarized several days into one blog, but this is a little different.  Right now we’re starting to research and plan our next leg – Southeast Asia – and I realize how useful people’s blogs can be when looking up information.  As a result, I’m making sure that I put any relevant and useful information into my blog entries while trying to be more concise.  Here goes attempt # 1….

Yesterday, we checked into Nena Hotel, which we found through TripAdvisor.  Compared to all the hotels we’ve stayed at so far, it’s not bad, but it’s not great.  They let us check in early, but they gave us a room with two separate beds even though we asked for one big bed.  This morning they pushed the two beds together and swapped the two blankets for one big blanket, but I have a feeling the beds will not stay together as we toss and turn and then one of us will fall through the middle!  On the plus side, there is a full buffet breakfast included. 

We went to the famous Grand Bazaar last night, but didn’t stay long.  Unless you’re serious about buying stuff, you can’t stop to look at anything because the shop keepers won’t leave you alone once you show some interest!  Even just walking straight people will come up to you and be like “want a nice carpet?” or “something to drink?”  The Grand Bazaar is a really cool market place, but stiff competition and lots of identical product makes it a really hard place to shop, unless you love to negotiate prices. 

And it’s not just the vendors at the Grand Bazaar that are aggressive – if you look like a tourist you will get harassed to “come try” every restaurant you pass.  From what we’ve seen, a lot of menus look the same so competition is again really stiff.  So far we’ve tried two restaurants that Ilyas recommended – Sultanahmet Köftecisi near our hotel and Konak Kebap on Istiklal street, Istanbul’s main shopping drag.  Sultanahmet Köftecisi specializes in Turkish meatballs and a Köftecisi sandwich with a yogurt drink is a good deal at 5 lira (they’re more like a short minced meat kebabs than meatballs).  There’s actually two restaurants named Sultanahmet Köftecisi on the main street by our hotel and we tried both (one last night and one tonight).  The one next to a restaurant called Pudding Shop was, in our opinion, better.  Konak Kebap was pretty good too, but service sucked. We’ve been getting charged a 10% service fee everywhere, which Ilyas tells me (via Facebook) shouldn’t be the case, but we’re not the type to argue, so I guess we’ll keep paying it and not leave a tip instead.

This morning we tried to go to the Sultan Ahmed Mosque (also called the Blue Mosque) but it was prayer time when we showed up so we couldn’t go in.  If you hear singing coming from speakers placed all around the area, it’s the Islamic call to prayer and the Mosque is closed to visitors during that time.  Instead, we went and took the public ferry to Harem, which is on the Asia side of Istanbul. Most people take the Bosphorous Cruise for 20 lira to see the castle ruins at Anadolu Kavağı, but this puts you there for at least 2 hours, and Paul wasn’t up for that.  Going to Harem is kind of pointless, but it only cost 1.50 lira on our Akbil and at least we can say we made it to the Asia side of Istanbul.  After this, we made the mistake of walking across the Galata Bridge on the lower pedestrian only level, which is full of restaurants trying to solicit your business.  Unless you’re looking for somewhere to eat, there’s no reason to walk across the bridge on the lower level.

So far, Istanbul kind of reminds me of Hong Kong – vibrant, crowded, hot even though it’s November, and questionable in terms of hygiene and cleanliness but food tastes good so who cares!  I could do without all the pushy sales pitches, but the people here are so nice you can’t help but smile as you say “no thanks!”

While planning this leg of the trip, we weren’t sure if we should bother going to Bratislava, capital of the Slovak Republic.  Most people don’t have much to say about it, other than the fact that it’s really cheap.  If you remember the movie Euro Trip (which totally doesn’t depict Europe correctly at all but was humorous nonetheless), Bratislava is the run down, dump city where they ended up with only $1.83 while trying to hitchhike to Berlin, but managed to live like kings thanks to the conversion rate.  Since it’s only an hour by train from Vienna, we decided to come spend 2 nights and see for ourselves what it’s really like…

So first things first, Bratislava looks nothing like what they show in Euro Trip (granted, that movie was made in 2004, but still…)  The buildings outside of city center are a bit drab (just large square stone structures without any elaborate carving or decoration), but it’s not really run down like in Euro Trip and city center is actually quite pleasant with a medieval feel.  According to Rick Steves, who included a section in his Rick Steves Vienna book about Bratislava since it’s so close by, the City of Bratislava has put painstaking amounts of effort in recent years to restore the buildings of city center back to their pre-communism splendor.  While I can’t say it’s the nicest city center we’ve been to, you can tell that they’ve done some restoration and there are some nice things to see.

Today we followed Rick’s walking guide (I copied the path down from his book before returning it to the hostel in Vienna), and went from St. Michael’s Gate, the last surviving tower of the city wall, to Venturska street to try a restaurant called Flowers he recommended in his book.  Although it was a really pricey for Bratislava (about 20 euros per main course), it was the best food we’ve had in a while, reminiscent of what we would get back home if we went out for a nice meal (I had the Rib Eye steak and Paul got the lamb shank).  Combine this with the yummy meal we had last night at 1 Slovak Pub (authenic Slovak food made with products from the pub’s own farm), where main courses were only 5-10 euros, and we’re glad we stopped in Bratislava just for the food!  Except we’re not a fan of the signature Slovak dish, Bryndzové halušky, small spaetzle-like dumplings made with goat cheese, because we don’t like the taste of the goat cheese…

I won’t bore you by reciting Rick’s walking guide, but I will mention that the highlight for me was seeing the various statues of different characters they have around town.  Each one represents something and I’m glad I read about them all in Rick’s book before I saw them so I knew why they were there.  To walk around all of city center and see the sights Rick highlighted took us about two hours, without going into any museums, churches, or castles.  Considering the fact that Prague castle didn’t really impress us, Bratislava castle didn’t really appeal to us.  The only thing I wish we had a chance to do but couldn’t is see the renowned Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra play. 

Although we enjoyed our time here, I have to agree with Rick that Bratislava is better done as a daytrip from nearby Vienna because our hostel, the Hostel Possonium, wasn’t the greatest.  It was significantly more expensive than the hostel in Vienna (although we got a private room so that’s part of the reason), city center was almost 2 km away and we didn’t understand their tram system so we got lost walking, the walls are quite thin and we heard the guys in the dorm next to us talking all night last night, the Wi-Fi crawled because the guy at reception (who wasn’t very helpful) was streaming video on YouTube all the time, and I was really choked by the fact that I didn’t have hot water when I showered this afternoon!  If you’re thinking about visiting Bratislava, do what Rick says and daytrip from Vienna…

Yesterday, we spent our last day in Prague exploring the Jewish quarter and searching for the eurodog again.  Although we managed to find a stand that sold eurodogs close to our hotel, we ordered the XL hot dogs because I was hungry and wanted to see how big it would be, and they turned out to not be served in the baguette with the hole in it (presumably because it’s too big to fit in the baguette which is tiny).

 This morning, on our way to the train station, we finally got our eurodogs by going back to the same place and pointing at the baguettes to order.  The XL hot dogs actually tasted better (the eurodogs use ordinary Oscar Mayer style wieners), but the baguette with a hole in it makes it easy to hold and eat, unlike with regular hot dog buns where your mustard and ketchup get squeezed out the other end as you bite.  Considering it’s just 15 Czech crowns (about 90 cents Canadian) each eurodog, it’s pretty darn good value!  The only thing I can think of that compares back home is the hot dogs at Ikea, but the eurodog is a bit better.

Like most travel days on this trip, after we found our way to the hostel and checked in, we didn’t do much.  The hostel (Wombats the Base) is close to a fairly large main street called Mariahilfer Straße, which has quite a few places to eat.  We picked a fast food chicken place at random and got a chicken cordon blue (which is apparently a popular dish that’s available almost everywhere in Vienna) and a tasty skewer of meat called Adana with rice.  Compared to the food we had in Prague, the stuff here seems tastier and better value so far!   But it’s only the first night so we’ll see how our dining experiences pan out tomorrow…

When planning the UK segment of our trip, we used Rick Steves’ website to compile a list of places to visit based on his recommended itinerary.  Visiting a town in the Cotswolds, a range of hills in west-central England, was fairly high on his priority list, so we decided to spend two nights in Moreton-In-Marsh, the only town in the Cotswolds which has a train station. I’m happy to report that, although it’s small, Moreton-In-Marsh may turn out to be one of my favorite places in England…

Part of the reason I’ve enjoyed our time here so much is because we’re staying at a B&B called Old Farm, which is actually a working farm that breeds sheep, cattle and Gloucestershire Old Spot pigs.  When planning our trip, I was hoping to stay at a farm B&B because I love animals, but it hasn’t been possible since most farms are quite far from town and we’re not driving.  Luckily, in the Cotswolds farms are all over the place, and Old Farm is only a 2 km walk from the Moreton-In-Marsh train station so it was reachable for us! 

Our first walk to the farm yesterday was quite the adventure in and of itself – we followed the directions the owners had emailed us and walked from the train station to a set of kissing gates, which led to a large field full of sheep!  I’ve only seen sheep in small gated pens in petting zoos, and it felt totally different (and amusing) to walk through a field full of them and have them run away in all different directions baahing as you get near them.  Since we couldn’t agree on what the directions “head for the top left corner of the first field” meant, we ended up making a big L-shaped loop, causing sheep run all over the place as we looked for the proper gate.  It took us a while, but eventually we found our way to the farm

Although the décor is a bit dated (think 70s style traditional country home full of flower prints and pink wallpaper), our room at the B&B is quite comfortable and the bed is huge and soft.  The best part of staying on Old Farm, though, is the breakfast – fresh free range eggs from their own chickens, bacon and sausages made from their own pigs, yogurt, milk, butter, juice and jams from other local farms, and fresh bread from a local bakery.  I kid you not, this was the best breakfast I’ve ever had in my entire life!  The breakfast (and the cute animals all over the place) makes me wish I could live on a farm, but growing up a city girl, I know I just couldn’t hack it!

Apart from exploring the farm (with the help of Sam and Meg, the owner’s children) and wandering around the town, there hasn’t been much for us to do here, but I feel like it’s been a really peaceful, down to earth couple of days and I would have spent more time here in a heartbeat.  Unfortunately, the B&B was already booked up when I was making my booking so two nights was all we could manage.  If we ever come back to the UK, spending more time in the Cotswolds visiting different towns and coming back to Old Farm would definitely be at the top of my priority list!  Until then, I’ll always think of this breakfast when I eat bacon and eggs at home…

This past Sunday we caught a very crowded train to Cardiff, Wales, where we’ve spent the last 4 nights.  Once again, I’m summarizing several days into one blog because our time here hasn’t been that exciting.  Cardiff is Europe’s youngest capital city and is growing quickly, but when there isn’t a major rugby match happening at Millennium Stadium, there isn’t a whole lot of excitement in the city… 

After our over-priced stay at The Firs B&B in Bath, it was a relief to come to the River House Backpackers hostel in Cardiff which is much more reasonably priced.  This is a hostel run by a brother and sister (Charlie & Abi) who share a love of travel and have incorporated all the best things they’ve found on their stays in hostels into a place of their own.  The result is fantastic – the hostel is fairly new and impeccably clean, the kitchen is well equipped, there’s free Wi-Fi and free breakfast which isn’t just bread, laundry facilities are available at a reasonable price, and Charlie and Abi are some of the nicest people we’ve encountered at any place we’ve stayed so far.  We had booked in a 4 bed mixed dorm because there were no private rooms available, but when we arrived we asked to double check if any private rooms had freed up, and Charlie found us a private room for three nights and put us in a dorm by ourselves for the fourth, without charging us extra!  Now that’s what I call amazing customer service

On our first night, we headed to the Red Dragon Center, a leisure and entertainment complex in Cardiff bay, to see the new “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” movie.  For some unknown reason, the movie came out on June 19 in the UK, five days before the North American release, so we got to see it before any of our friends!  Unlike the last time we saw a movie in Germany, this theatre isn’t all assigned seating, but you can pay ₤1 extra for an assigned seat in the “Premier” section (upper rows).  There’s also a section called the “Gallery” which costs ₤15/ticket, but includes unlimited popcorn and soft drinks (if you can eat more than one bag of popcorn it’s worth it, but otherwise it’s not).  The assigned seating turned out to be unnecessary since we were among the first people in the theatre so we could have sat one row below us without paying extra, but we’re used to crazy busy theatres during a film’s opening week so we wanted to make sure we had good seats.  It actually would have been better to sit elsewhere, though, because the people next to us were like the Welsh version of a hick and drank beer, talked, and burped throughout the entire movie, which was both gross and annoying!!!

We got a taste of “traditional Welsh” food on our second day, trying out a restaurant named Garlands which Charlie had recommended.  The “cawl” (traditional Welsh soup made with meat and vegetables) was delicious, but the rest of our food (a jacket potato filled with chicken and sour cream and a dish of sausages on top of mushy peas) was not exactly amazing.  As a result, when we discovered the Cardiff Market on our third day, we began to make use of the wonderful kitchen facility at the hostel and cooked the rest of our meals.  Charlie told me the E. Ashton Fishmongers at Cardiff market sell really good fresh seafood and for ₤8 I made a really good meal of salmon fillets with jumbo scallops.  Here in Cardiff, I have finally learned how to cook some fish!

The rest of our sightseeing included Cardiff castle, which we didn’t bother to go into because we don’t want to get bored of castles too quickly on our UK trip, some shopping at the Victorian style arcades, a water taxi ride which was a nice way to cruise to Cardiff bay from our hostel, some wandering around in the Cardiff bay area, and the free Cardiff National Museum which houses some interesting art, archaeology, geology, and natural history exhibits.  There was nothing really spectacular, but our time here was relaxing and inexpensive and I would say Cardiff is worth a visit if you’re going to the UK.  Four nights was a bit much, but we don’t regret scheduling too much time here because Charlie and Abi made our stay so enjoyable that it was nice to just chill out at the hostel and get some rest!

Oh and if you’re a Doctor Who fan, most of the new Doctor Who series is filmed in Cardiff and they have a Doctor Who museum at the Red Dragon Center which we forgot to go back to check out.  I had never heard of Doctor Who until I came here and didn’t believe Paul when he told me he’s a time travelling alien, but it’s true and I have to admit I’m now addicted to the show (yes, I know, I’m a geek)!  We might have to go back to Cardiff one day to see the museum…

In an effort to catch up on my blog articles, I’m condensing the remaining three of our four days in Bath into one blog entry because, frankly, our time in Bath wasn’t all that interesting!  It’s a nice little town and, after our first day of crappy food, we managed to find a few decent places to eat, but two days here would have been enough, and four days was total overkill.  Bath might be a good spot to holiday if I lived nearby and needed a relaxing getaway, but as a backpacker, it’s just overpriced without much to see or do…

Part of the reason Bath is so pricey is because it’s the oldest of England’s principal tourist destinations.  Talk to any British person and you’ll find that they’ve been to Bath at least once.  Talk to any American who has been to the UK and if they were in London, it is likely they also visited Bath.  The first sign that Bath isn’t a backpackers type of vacation is the fact that every third house you see is a B&B guesthome (since there are so many tourists), but there are only four hostels.  Of these, two have terrible ratings and two have a number of bad reviews so we decided to book at a B&B and pay the premium.

Unfortunately, the B&B we booked at (Austen guesthouse) suddenly had to shut down due to severe plumbing problems, so they rearranged for us to stay at another place called The Firs.  Although our room was very comfortable and the owner was nice, the location was terrible – 2 km away from city center in a residential area with just one small supermarket and 2 restaurant options.  Since buses in Bath aren’t cheap (₤1.85 one way), we should have just paid more to stay in the center!

For our first day in Bath, Paul decided to stay in because he felt like he was getting the flu, so I made the trek to town by myself to go shopping.  Much to Paul’s dismay, I’ve decided to continue reading a set of children’s books called A Series Of Unfortunate Events (I read book one back in University while doing a children’s literature course), which only come in hardcover.  For some unknown reason, Bath has an abundance of thrift and used book stores, and I couldn’t resist when I found 4 of the A Series Of Unfortunate Events books for just ₤1 each (I paid over $10 for the first book!).  Let’s just say Paul was not amused when I returned with 4 hardcover books, but I promised I’d be the one carrying them around until we could send them home with him in 3 weeks on his scheduled flight back for business!

The next day we walked to city center together to check out the Bath Abbey, the Roman Baths, Bath Market, and a large circular space surrounded by townhouses called The Circus.  None of the sightseeing wowed me, but they all have historical significance and were quite pretty.  Because we couldn’t agree on anywhere to eat on our way home, we ended up going back to the pizza/pasta takeout place near the B&B again, but this time we ordered a pizza, which tasted ok.  I guess that’s how they stay in business!

On our last night in Bath, we did the Bizzare Bath comedy walk, which is rated the second most popular attraction in Bath on TripAdvisor.  While I found it humorous, I don’t think I’d rant and rave about it the way people on TripAdvisor do.  It was nice to do a tour that wasn’t focused on the history like most tours are, but I think a little bit of history would have been good because without it, a walking tour loses its purpose – you don’t really need to walk all over the place to see a comedian do his act!  Some of the jokes pertained to all these different places we walked to, but there were a lot of stretches where it seemed like we were walking for no reason. 
  
So there you have it, four days in Bath summed up in 2 blog articles.  Not our most thrilling stop, but Bath is a hotspot for hen and stag parties (we passed like 5 of them on our last night), and a good spot to go for a spa vacation.  Personally I doubt I’ll ever come back, but never say never!

Since leaving Spain and heading to France, the language barrier hasn’t been that big of an issue because we’ve always found someone that speaks some English, but I’m still very excited about the fact that today we’re back in a country where English is the primary language!  Not only do I not have to worry anymore about who I can ask for directions and stuff like that, I love the fact that we’re surrounded by sexy British accents!   This could be a great couple of months…

We arrived in London at 9 am this morning, after catching a train from Harwich, where all passengers departed the ferry at 6:45 am. The train brought us to Liverpool station, where we picked up Oyster cards for the Tube, which we needed to get to our hotel, the Ibis London Wembley. The hotel is quite far from city center (about a 45 min tube ride) and we made a mistake booking it because Paul thought Wembley was the same thing as Wimbledon so there would be stuff to see/do around there, but we can’t complain too much since the rate was fantastic (averaging £35 per night!) and there is some stuff around us (such as Wembley stadium, which is used for football and concerts). Also helpful today was the fact that Paul has now reached gold status with their loyalty program so they let us check in early without any extra charge!

After a short nap (waking up at 6 am doesn’t agree with either of us), we headed out to Piccadilly Circus to find Calvin, and old friend of Paul’s from Edmonton who we made plans to meet up with when we found out a few weeks ago that he would be here for part of his vacation at the same time as us. All three of us were hungry, so we set off in search of lunch, walking from Piccadilly Circus (the Times Square of London) to Trafalgar Square. As we walked, I noticed a Tim Hortons kiosk inside of a Spar convenience store and immediately rushed in for a coffee – Tim Hortons is like a drug addiction to me (as it is with a lot of people I know!) and I was amazed to see that they’ve expanded internationally! Sadly, it wasn’t the same as back home because the coffee comes from a self-operated machine here and the doughnut selection is different

I’m pretty sure everyone knows what Trafalgar square is, but we were so focused on looking for a restaurant that we almost didn’t realize where we were until Paul noticed Nelson’s column at the center!  We snapped a few pics of the square and headed off to continue our search for a restaurant, and finally found a place called Med Kitchen which had a decent looking menu. Calvin and I ordered the swordfish with mango salsa while Paul got the spaghetti carbonara, and all three of us were happy with our meals (although we were so hungry we could have eaten anything and been happy!).  So far, food in the UK isn’t sucking as much as everyone told us it would…

After lunch, we walked along the River Thames to get to Big Ben, the Palace of Westminster (a.k.a. the Houses of Parliament), and Westminster Abbey. We arrived at Westminster Abbey just as they were closing, so we decided not to pay the ₤15 to go in today and headed off to Buckingham Palace by walking through St. James’s Park, which was quite a nice walk.  We were hoping to see one of the Queen’s Guards up close, but they’re all behind the gates of the Palace and it’s not like in the movies where you can take pictures with them! 

Since we had covered so many sights in one day, we decided to take a break from sightseeing and headed to Harrods department store to do some browsing. Even though I can’t buy anything right now, (and I probably wouldn’t shop here anyways since the conversion rate to the Pound sucks), it was fun to wander around the world’s biggest department store, especially when I found a section of OSIM demo massage chairs! I stayed in that area trying out various machines until almost closing time, when we rushed downstairs to check out the Princess Di memorial on the bottom floor of the store before leaving.

We finished our night in Chinatown, where we decided to try eating at the only restaurant that had a queue of Chinese people waiting for tables. As we waited for a table, we found out that the BBQ duck is what this restaurant is known for, so of course we ordered it as one of our dishes! It did not disappoint – it might actually be the best BBQ duck I’ve ever had anywhere! The skin was crispy and fatty while the meat was juicy and tender – this is how BBQ duck should be cooked!  Who would have thought I’d get better BBQ duck in London than I do in Hong Kong?

Day 1 in London has been a long one, but it was definitely worth the effort. Paul and I still have 10 days here and we’ve seen so much already! What are we going to do when Calvin leaves!

Tonight we are on our first ferry ride of this trip, taking the Stena Line from Hoek van Holland to Harwich, England.  Stena operates two ferries from Hoek van Holland to Harwich each day, one during the day and one overnight.  We were originally going to take the daytime one, but when we realized our mistake about miscounting the number of days we had been in Schengen Agreement countries (as mentioned before, Canadian citizens are allowed in for 90 days out of every 180 without a visa), we changed our reservation to the overnight ferry.  Once we got onboard and saw that the ferry is more like a mini cruise ship and we have a decent room equipped with bunk beds and a washroom and shower, I was glad we took the overnight ferry instead.  At about the same price as plane tickets to London (€ 45 each including the train ticket from Harwich to London), I think the ferry is a much more relaxing way to travel and you save on one night of accommodations by taking the overnight ferry!

Our ferry didn’t leave until 10 this evening, but we got there at 8 in order to give ourselves plenty of time to pick up the tickets we reserved online.  The ticket pick-up was quick and easy as everything was ready in an envelope for the lady at the ticket counter to hand us, and we got onboard after getting stamped out of the EU by a couple of customs agents who were checking passports as you got to the boarding area – they do check the stamps in your passport to determine number of days you have been there! 

Since we were so early, I thought we would be among the first people on board, but there was already a large crowd of people drinking at the bar!  In addition to having cabins for you to sleep in (and there are several different classes of cabin you can pay for like on a cruise), there was also a lounge/bar area, a huge cafeteria-style dining area, a small casino, a small theatre, and a large outdoor deck area.  You can also get wi-fi internet access for a small cost, so Paul really does have everything he needs!  Personally, I’d take this ferry over flying any day…